The syringe clattered across the tiled floor, rolling to stop halfway between Nero and myself, the blue serum swirling inside of the cylinder. I heard a male voice scream my name, but only Nero, King, and I were in the room. Nothing else mattered, and I could only see red like a raging bull. There was no fear in King’s face. It was soft in reverence and worship as if I was a god and all he could do was revel in the power I showed him. Nero hunched next to Doctor Aserov, but his face was calm, cold, and unyielding. The steely gray mirrored his brother’s steady demeanor and never left me once.
The power flowed within me, rolling down to my hands as I focused it toward the center of my palms. If King wanted a show, that’s what he would get. And he would be the main attraction. He had me kidnapped, tortured, forced to kill, and now he was trying to steal the only thing he held dear in the world. Power.
It was real and absolute, and I held it in my very hands.
Nero had betrayed me. Us. His lifelong friends whom he swore he would do anything to protect. Not that I didn’t stink of betrayal, but there was one simple thing that separated me from him. He was a sell-out. A traitor. And he had turned us into the enemy. He was the only person who knew of our plan to escape and hadn’t come along, and I couldn’t forgive him for that. I understood his motives. I knew why he felt that betraying us to King was the next logical step, but no one had forced his hand with threats. He’d had a choice. I hadn’t.
“Stand up,” I said to them as the air around us died, papers and other miscellaneous things falling to the ground as it did.
Neither man moved. I obliterated King’s well-to-do neatness, and Nero’s elite fearlessness melted away, exposing them both as the sniveling cowards they truly were. I knew Nero possessed an ability but had never once seen it like he was attempting to hide it from all of us.
“Stand up,” I yelled, raising both hands in the air, taking them in my invisible grip and pushing the power into them to stand against the far wall they had huddled against. The power moving inside of me was scorching, feeding the need for revenge that fueled my need to destroy.
“I knew you were more than you seemed,” King breathed past the terror in his voice that was finally showing on his face.
Angry at his statement, I turned to face him, not taking my attention away from Nero as I held them both in place. Neither one of them could move and were at my mercy, nor had they come to realize compassion was no longer in my vocabulary. I stalked toward him, his eyes growing even wider and showing way too much white. I chuckled at the sight of it, my voice sounding too thick even for me.
“Well, you did want a show, right?” I was practically standing nose to nose with him. “You wanted to push me to see how far I would go? You have no idea, King. No one did. I’ll admit that I didn’t either. Now, I do, and you get to experience it for yourself. You get to feel everything Cato had when your push caused his death.”
“You won’t get away with this,” Nero yelled, having to force the words past my power as it built in his chest.
He still honestly believed that I had slain Cato of my free will. I wouldn’t be able to prove otherwise. From the video I knew King had tucked away that was exactly how it looked. The only other people who knew the truth were Ryder, the good doctor, and Cato himself.
I shrugged. “Maybe. Maybe not.” I paused, taking a sidelong glance at both of them. “That’s for fate to decide.”
The room went silent, and not even the breaths from my companions behind me still in their seats made a sound. They could feel the same thing. I could project my power out of my body and into each living thing. It was just up to me to focus it in the right direction. That was what I would do.
I imagined those invisible hands around them and then pushed those hands so far down into their bodies that only I could pull them out. The power flowed through them, through each skin cell, each muscle, and each bone. There was no place inside of them that was a haven. I wouldn’t allow it. With pinpoint focus, I zoomed into their bloodstream, seeing each red and white blood cell perfectly in my mind, but I had one particular target.
I focused on the nearest red cell and sent my mind deep into its makeup, generating enough energy to cause certain parts of the cells to move and erupt from the pressure of the friction; then down to the atoms, their rubbing producing a heat that only they would know. A heat that would boil their blood in their veins, turning them into dry and dead husks on the ground. Just like I had been forced to do to Cato. A tear escaped at the thought of my friend, but I remained vigilant.
Their masculine cries echoed off the walls, ringing in my ears and causing a pleasure that I didn’t know how to explain. It was almost as if I had double vision. My eyes could see the men in front of me that no one would be able to save as they screamed for their lives, but my mind could see what I was doing to the insides of their veins.
A sensation that I could only explain as a bomb going off inside of my chest stopped my focus as their veins began to turn purple, spreading like bruises on their flawless skin. The power folded back into me, my vision blurring and then turning black around the edges with a few straggling spots of red lingering over the rest. The air from within my lungs was gone in an instant, leaving only empty sacks of tissue as I stood.
Opening my lips, I tried to take a deep, filling breath, but nothing came. It was as if all the air was being sucked from the room. The only oxygen left was flowing through my veins with my blood. Then I looked up. I had lost my grip on the two men and Nero was grinning from ear to ear, watching me as I struggled against the feeling of suffocating, trying to find air to breathe. That was Nero’s gift, and I understood why he had been hiding it up to that point.
King was on the ground, trying to recuperate from the agony of having his blood boiled while it was still inside of him. Sharp gasps and my comrades fell to the ground behind me. I turned just in enough time to see Ryder falling to his knees, his eyes turning bloodshot as he fought to find what the room lacked.
“Get out of here, King!” he yelled, not taking his eyes off his work as the man who had caused all of this fled from the room, leaving us alone to fight amongst ourselves and argue over who had betrayed who. He apparently didn’t want to see the product of his handy work as long as it was still alive and kicking and could kill him with a flick of a wrist.
Once King had disappeared behind the metal door, I fell to my knees, spots and darkness clouding my vision as I was beginning to lose consciousness. My lungs burned as I knelt there, completely at Nero’s mercy as he took one step closer to me, then another. Then another. He was within arm’s reach, but I could no longer stay in that position.
My body slumped, but Nero caught me and held me there so I could look into his eyes. Those steel-gray eyes were ones I would never look at the same again without rage filling me, just waiting to bubble over and consume everything.
“You know, Mila, Cato was my best friend. The only person I knew better than myself. I knew he was self-sacrificing, but I didn’t know just how much so until King showed me that video.”
He blew a warm breath into my face, and I felt a small pang of oxygen hit my lungs. Not a lot, just enough to keep me awake for his speech.
“I watched you take his life, and I know you felt you had no choice in the matter, but everyone has a choice, and you made the wrong one.”
He dropped me to the ground, and the impact on the floor caused the little bit of air he had given me to leave my lungs. I felt as if my chest could explode any moment, but I knew he wouldn’t allow that to happen until he was done with me. I was choking. We were all dying and were helpless to stop it.
I saw something out of the corner of my eye. The syringe filled with the serum that would render our powers useless so they could extract them was within reach. The fluorescent blue liquid inside of it was still swirling as if it had absorbed some of my ability and was still being affected by it. I reached out, my fingers barely grazing the syringe as Nero watched the others sufferi
ng around him, marveling at his magical prowess. If magic was what it truly was. The syringe rolled a fraction of an inch away from my grasping fingers, and I shifted just enough with empty, burning lungs to nab it and tuck it into my body as Nero moved back to stand in front of me. All I could see were his military issued boots with the pants tucked into them.
He leaned down to look me in the eyes. I knew it was only to see the effects of his power on someone like him. Not exactly like him, but enough and I knew the others couldn’t take much more. Especially Ryder and Caius, who had no way to protect themselves from what Nero had done to them. I was sure they were already unconscious, but I had used so much energy just to get the syringe into my possession I wasn’t sure if I had the will to yield it to do what I needed to do.
“I have to admit I am loving watching you squirm.”
I opened my mouth to speak but didn’t have the air to do so. He sighed, and I felt just enough air seep into my system to form a few meaningful words of my own. I couldn’t use my power, but the serum in my hands was a suitable substitute.
“Then I’m sure you’ll love this,” I whispered, just loud enough he could hear but soft enough that he would have to lean in to do so.
With as much swiftness and power as I could muster, I jabbed the needle into his neck. I felt it sink into his flesh and muscle and then met resistance as it went in as far as it could go. There was no resistance as I pushed down on the plunger, giving him every ounce of serum that was inside of the syringe, and within seconds, there was a loud pop and a rush of air. Then, an explosion rocked the compound, and I knew my mother had come to save us.
My lungs burned as I sucked oxygen greedily into my lungs, filling them to the brim with what my body needed. It was refreshing and painful all at the same time. Each gasp of breath behind me sent relief rushing through me. We had somehow all made it. I rolled onto my side in enough time to see Ryder stand shakily and make his way toward me on wobbly legs, reaching down toward me and gripping me tight enough to lift me from the cold ground. My legs nearly slipped out from under me, but I managed to remain standing as long as he held me. His lips were on mine as soon as I had steadied myself, my senses igniting with heat as my heart fluttered against my ribcage as well as the newly acquired oxygen. His lips were soft and hungry and wet from tears of relief as we held onto each other, not caring about anything else around us.
I pulled away from him first, remembering Nero had been in the room. He was lying on the ground, his body shaking as if he was having a small seizure. He would be incapacitated long enough for us to get out. Everyone was all right except for him. Julius was sweating, his shirt nearly soaked through and Caius was a shaking mess, but what mattered was that we were all alive to fight another day. Because King had escaped, I knew we would.
“Let’s get out of here before anyone else comes. He’ll be out of it for a while,” Ryder said as he pulled me toward the door and the stillness of the compound.
Once we had made our way out of the door, there was nothing but silence and bodies littering the ground. Had the battle gone on long enough for everyone to make it out? How long had we been inside of that torture chamber? Hours? Days? I was betting it had been closer to hours.
When I saw her, I couldn’t believe my eyes. My mother was running down the hallway, handgun held firmly in her grasp and tears streaming down her face. Her blonde hair was up in a ponytail, and she was dressed in a well-fitting black sweater and pants. She was dressed almost like King’s military, but I knew better than that.
I broke out into a run, and we collided after only five feet of my sprint. Sobs racked my body as relief and sadness flooded through me. I had caused death. I had saved lives, but most of all, I had found a part of myself I had been missing. As she held onto me, my cries spoke of my pain without so many words, and I was certain she understood without having to utter a single sentence. She had known what King was capable of after working for him and so would the rest of the world.
We would expose him, and we would take everything he felt belonged to him.
IT HAD BEGUN…
About the Author
Kindra Sowder was born and raised in Rancho Palos Verdes, CA. At the age of 12 she moved with her grandparents to Spartanburg, SC where she graduated from high school with honors as well as a superior achievement in Spanish. She graduated college with two degrees in Criminal Neuropsychology. She still lives in South Carolina and lives with her husband and three cats. Two of her series have become bestsellers and she continues to write for the love of the craft.
The Harvested (The Permutation Archives Book 1) Page 22
